Fashioning AI : Human and Nonhuman design

As AI technologies continue to reshape the fashion industry, this paper examines how the role of designers istransforming, with a particular focus on the socio-technical and cultural implications of AI-driven design processes.Traditionally, fashion design has involved physical, tactile interactions with fabric and the human body. However, theintroduction of AI tools—capable of generating designs and predicting trends—raises critical concerns about the shiftingboundaries of creative authorship, craftsmanship, and artistic agency. While proponents highlight AI’s potential to improveefficiency, sustainability, and accessibility, significant risks emerge, particularly around creativity being reduced to data-driven outputs and innovation being limited by algorithmic predictability.This transformation also has broader social implications. AI-driven design tools often reflect and reinforce existing biasesin the data they use, raising concerns about the amplification of gendered and racial inequalities in fashion. Normativeideals of beauty and body image may become further entrenched as AI-generated fashion models and designs reproducenarrow, exclusionary standards. Moreover, the increasing delegation of creative tasks to machines risks sideliningmarginalized designers and voices, making it harder for diverse identities to shape the future of fashion.Methodologically, this study employs ethnographic methods, including participant observation and interviews withdesigners, to understand how they navigate the adoption of AI in their work. The findings will offer insights into how AIreconfigures creative labour, with a focus on its impact on identity, inclusivity, and the balance between human andmachine agency in fashion.